Postcard From South Africa

Hazel sends her grand daughter a postcard from South Africa, along the way the postcard has it's own adventures.

As a former stamp collector the idea of conducting my hobby without the use of a full-colour priced catalogue would have seemed ridiculous. Many such catalogues are produced each year - ranging in scope from those covering the whole world in a highly simplified format to others covering the issues of a single country in great detail. It therefore came as a great surprise to me to discover that no catalogue had been produced covering the activities of the many postcard publishers who had been in business in South Africa in the early part of the twentieth century. Starting in the 1980's the now defunct Southern Africa Postcard Research Group (SAPRG) under the leadership of Aston (Archie) Atkinson published a number of preliminary checklists of publishers and the cards they had produced. It soon became clear that these lists, although admirable starting points, were far from complete and it was for this reason that I proposed the compilation and subsequent publication of the South African Picture Postcard Catalogue.

An extraordinary view of the bounty of Africa and its diaspora.

For over forty years, professor and culinary historian Jessica B. Harris has collected postcards depicting Africans and their descendants in the American diaspora. They are presented for the first time in this exquisite volume. Vintage Postcards from the African World: In the Dignity of Their Work and the Joy of Their Play brings together more than 150 images, providing a visual document of more than a century of work in agricultural and culinary pursuits and joy in entertainments, parades, and celebrations. Organized by geography—Africa, the Caribbean, and the United States—as well as by the types of scenes depicted—the farm, the garden, and the sea; the marketplace; the vendors and the cooks; leisure, entertainments, and festivities—the images capture the dignity of the labors of everyday life and the pride of festive occasions. Superb and rare images demonstrate everything from how Africans and their descendants dressed to what tools they used to how their entertainments provided relief from toil. Three essays accompany the postcards, one of which details Harris’s collection and the collecting process. A second presents suggestions on how to interpret the cards. A final essay gives brief information on the history of postcards and postcard dating and its increasing use and value to scholars.

China and Africa have long shared a history of allegiance and contact points through global political forces from the time of colonialism and the Cold War. With China’s rise as the new superpower, its presence in Africa has expanded, leading to significant economic, geopolitical and cultural shifts. While issues such as trade, aid and development have received much attention, Chinese and African encounters through the lens of the visual arts and material culture is a neglected field. Visualising China in Southern Africa: Biography, Circulation, Transgression is a ground-breaking volume that addresses this deficit through engaging with the work of contemporary African and Chinese artists while analysing broader material production that prefigures the current relationship. The essays are wide-ranging in their analysis of ceramics, photography, painting, etching, sculpture, film, performance, postcards, stamps, installations, political posters, cartoons and architecture. Visualising China in Southern Africa confines its focus to southern Africa, yet even within this region, the context is complex. Ethnicity and nationalism, the lingering influence of Cold War allegiances and colonial configurations all continue to play a role. The various visual cultures discussed in this volume emphasise the commonality of these categories, but also point towards other shared histories that transcend the nation-state category. The collection includes scholarly chapters, photo essays, interviews, and artists’ personal accounts, organised around four themes: material flows, orientations and transgressions, spatial imaginaries, and biographies. The artists, photographers, filmmakers, curators and collectors in this volume include: Stary Mwaba, Hua Jiming, Anawana Haloba, Gerald Machona, Nobukho Nqaba, Marcus Neustetter, Brett Murray, Diane Victor, William Kentridge, Kristin NG-Yang, Kok Nam, Mark Lewis, the Chinese Camera Club of South Africa, Wu Jing, Henion Han and Shengkai Wu.

As a former stamp collector the idea of conducting my hobby without the use of a full-colour priced catalogue would have seemed ridiculous. Many such catalogues are produced each year - ranging in scope from those covering the whole world in a highly simplified format to others covering the issues of a single country in great detail. It therefore came as a great surprise to me to discover that no catalogue had been produced covering the activities of the many postcard publishers who had been in business in South Africa in the early part of the twentieth century. Starting in the 1980's the now defunct Southern Africa Postcard Research Group (SAPRG) under the leadership of Aston (Archie) Atkinson published a number of preliminary checklists of publishers and the cards they had produced. It soon became clear that these lists, although admirable starting points, were far from complete and it was for this reason that I proposed the compilation and subsequent publication of the South African Picture Postcard Catalogue.